A priceless gift

Ok, this one's a bit cheesy. You've been fairly warned. After Stake Conference, we headed over to my parents house to spend some time with Bourne Family. As we left, my mom handed us a binder and bin full of quick and easy Family Home Lesson each with an object that went along with them. They are simple and exciting for little ones, which works great for us, so on Monday night, we pulled out the binder and box and started on the first one. The kids picked the elephant and we ended up learning about Noah and the Ark. At the end of each lesson is an activity, and this week the kids had to run around the house finding every stuffed animal they could find and bring it to the living room to create their own ark. We ended up with about 8 bears and quite a few elephants, a few dinosaurs, and even one flamingo. The kids enjoyed being Noah and realized it must have been a pretty hard job for him to get all those animals. Afterward, we headed outside and built a fort out of hay bales, as this has been occupying a lot of Tyler's time lately (hay bales, not forts). The kids had fun going inside and insisted everyone come in with them, so we got a bit crowded. We had a snack inside and got our hair pretty full of hay in the process. It was fun. I'd like to thank my mom and my little niece for their time and effort into creating these books for us. It's a priceless gift to me, and I know that having FHE will end up being a priceless gift for my children. Without getting too sappy, you can't ignore the prophets. I think they know. Thanks mom.

Monster Jammin

Tyler and I have had a redneck tradition for quite a few years of going to the Monster Truck show whenever it comes to Calgary. One year for valentines day he bought me tickets to Metallica and I bought him tickets to Monster Jam...a little trailer trash valentines, but we had fun. We decided this year the kids were old enough to join in our tradition and we all headed to the Grand Stand Grounds for the Monster Jam. It was loud and a bit long for a 2 year old, but we had fun. Max wasn't really interested in any but the Monster Trucks, so the motocross, derby and quad races were lost on him, which took up about 75% of the event. But the roar of the Monster Truck engines got him pretty excited. Of course, he was pretty disappointed when they did the Monster Truck Freestyle event where they basically go crazy and ruin everything in their path, including themselves. He didn't understanding the breaking. They even pulled an old motorhome onto the field and a truck leveled it fairly quickly. He turned to me and said, "Now no one can live in it!" But I have to tell you that it did my heart good to see him bothered by destruction rather than his little mind gathering information and ideas for future play. He's a climber and jumper and loves swords, but fortunately destruction hasn't entered his mind...yet. The kids favorite Monster Truck of course was Jurassic Attack. Who wouldn't love a truck that's shaped like a dinosaur?

Brave Girl

Today was Lucy's first day of Pre-School. We have been building up to this moment for a few months now, since we registered her in June. Most of the build up has been in my own mind and heart as I prepared to see my tiny baby redhead go off to school and start doing things without me. I don't share these feelings with her very often, because her timid attitude leans towards staying at home with mom anyway, and I don't want to discourage her adventures. We've done tons of fun things this summer as a way to make me secretly feel better about the change that was coming. Lucy has been very excited about the prospect of school, as her aunties are still students and she wants to be just like them. She also enjoys shopping when it comes to buying new things for her, so this whole back-to-school shopping idea has been a hit. And I don't mind it too much either. She had a priesthood blessing from Dad this morning and spent much of Monday getting her backpack and things together and talking to me about the importance of the priesthood blessings and what she could be doing to prepare. We chose a perfect first day of school snack and picked out the perfect outfit to wear. These included a purple skirt and shirt, stockings and new shoes. Oh, and the snack was a juice box, babybel and sugar snap peas. Maybe not perfect to all, but it was to her. When we went back to school shopping I expected to have a very big wardrobe of pink items, since this is her reigning favorite color, but she surprised me by selecting a lot of purple items this time. I repeatedly asked her if she was sure, and she reassured me she was. "Purple is your favorite color mom." Not sure if that was the motivation, or if she was just reminding me that I liked it, so why was I questioning her judgement? This is one of the first times she made a lot of input into what was bought for her. And she also tried her wiles and convincing me to buy a lot of non-essentials...we walked away with only one, a new purse.Anyway, we headed to school for 12:30pm on Tuesday afternoon. It's a bit of change to our schedule so it's taken some figuring, but it'll work. There was a lot of excitement building up, and then some tears when we finally arrived. Max and I stayed with her to ease the transition for about 20 minutes and then had to peal ourselves away (literally). We were back in 2 hours to pick her up and the change in emotion was evident. She was all smiles and giggles and proceeded to tell me all about her great time at school. It was great to see the change, and I look forward to more smiles and less tears throughout the next 13 years. I can't believe we've started this!

Hip-Hip Parade!

We decided fairly impromptu Monday morning to head to town for the parade. I wasn't sure what to expect, being this was my first time, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The parade started at 10:30am (a very respectable time). We left our house at 10:05am, parked in the Extra Foods parking lot, as I had to do groceries after the parade was done and figured this would mean less driving in parade traffic (have you see how slow those pace cars go?), and walked the 2 blocks to a spot along the parade route. We took the chariot so the kids didn't have to walk too far, and we had absolutely no trouble finding a spot. It was so much less stressful than going to the stampede parade, that I may opt out of that one from now and focus on the Cochrane Labour day parade. They even had some of the same floats. The kids loved it, despite the wind, and enjoyed waving to everyone going by. Max would even get frustrated if someone didn't wave at him. They felt so much closer to the action this time, and yet completely safe in a familiar crowd. We enjoyed waving to the Gerries/Melanson's across the street from us. We also got to see a few friends participating in the parade. I'm not sure how their parent's feel about me publishing names, so I'll just leave it at '3 girls from the Cochrane Primary' and call it good. The kids enjoyed the usual: horses, shriners, clowns, and cool vintage cars. They especially enjoyed Sparky riding on the back of the fire truck and seeing Ronald McDonald and the giant Bull (2800 lbs!). We were especially proud to see the Cochrane Activettes with their float reminding the town of the food drive next weekend...The Black Pearl. They even had Captain Jack Sparrow riding around on a 'chubby car' (as Max called it), which was actually a golf cart. He was elusive though, and I never got a picture. The kids got plenty of candy, and I even walked away with a carnation from Panda Flowers and a little dish scrubby from Pots n' Peppers. We were back at the van and ready for groceries just after noon, and it was totally awesome by me.
Yeehaw!

Summer of Lucy

In my attempt to cram as many experiences into this summer before Lucy starts school, we ended up having a pretty tame summer and a pretty busy last week. I feel like I've wasted so much time. On Friday we decided to head to the zoo for one more trip before school. It was windy out here in Cochrane (surprise surprise) but surprisingly pleasant and warm in the city. It made for a great day at the zoo. We hit all our usual favorites, but the highlight was definitely the hippos this time, for more than there usual fare. Max and Lucy stayed closed to the glass just looking, and one of the hippos was slumbering down in the water but every so often he would make his way up to the surface for a breath and would pass right along the glass where the kids were watching. The first time it surprised us, but then it was a pretty fun game to watch for him. Max loved it. At one point both hippos started 'gnashing teeth' with each other, which was a fun sight to see too. As we passed by the elephant crossing there was a presentation going on about teeth and tusks. Once the presentation was over, the kids were able to step forward and look at some of the artifacts on the table. Lucy was fascinated with the elephant droppings and skull. Max enjoyed touching the tusk. He said it was soft. We stopped at Peter's on the way home for icecream cones and milkshakes with Dad and then had a weiner roast with grandma and papa that night. It was a fun day and a great addition to the summer of Lucy.

Up the Lazy River

Tyler promised some friends from work a trip rafting down the river from Ghost Reservoir to Cochrane so on Tuesday morning we woke up, did some quick school shopping for Lucy and then headed out. The kids had fun and are always so encouraging to their adventurous Dad. "Just try your best dad!" was a chant we heard often. We enjoyed watching the train pass us, and the kids enjoyed even more when they convinced the engineer to toot his horn for us. It was after 8pm before we got back to Cochrane so it was a bit cool and we weren't smart enough to bring our sweaters down the river. Tyler quickly headed back to pick up the van and we all headed to Boston Pizza for a late dinner and an even later bedtime. We're squeezing every moment of summer we can out of this week before everyone is back at it I guess!

Hot Hot September

Well, for one day anyway. We found out Monday was going to be a pretty nice day, so we decided to all head to Riley Park for a picnic dinner and enjoy the fading summer. Sarah is leaving later in the week to Mexico for 3 months, so it was our last chance to get the whole family together before she left. We packed up our vehicles with bathing suits, towels, lawn chairs, and everything we could possibly think of to eat. The kids love Riley Park and it was a new experience for Jacob, who also loved it.